Soviet historiography of the period of «late Stalinism»: on cultural and educational work in the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War (22.06.1941–09.05.1945)

Abstract

One of the essential reasons for achieving the victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War (22.06.1941–09.05.1945) was that the Armed Forces of the Soviet state carried out, and permanently, purposefully, actively, proactively and creatively, party political work. Its inalienable part was cultural and educational work, which had a small degree of independence. The historical phenomena mentioned above were constantly in the sphere of scientific interests of Soviet historians. Meanwhile, in post-Soviet historiography, they did not become significant in research practice. In modern Russian historiography at the beginning of the XXI century, such a bias is gradually being eliminated. The author of this small historiographical study, carried out in the format of a short scientific article, presents to the scientific and historical community an analysis of Soviet historiographical sources published during the period of «late Stalinism» (1945 – about the first half of the 1950s), that is, at a time when the cult of personality of I.V. Stalin reached its peak the highest point. The author, revealing the subject of his research, took into account in every possible way the historiographical situation that developed in Soviet historical science during the period of «late Stalinism», in particular, the development of historiography in the coordinate system of the Stalinist theoretical and methodological paradigm (and even more rigid than in the second half of the 1930s); a small number of historiographical and historical sources what was published in the chronological framework indicated above, as well as the absence of a proper historiographical elaboration of our problem. The article is carried out from the standpoint of modern theoretical and methodological approaches.